


Energy

by Jackson_Rayne



Category: Firefly
Genre: Angst, Friendship, Hopeful Ending, Jealousy, M/M, True Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-22
Updated: 2012-09-22
Packaged: 2017-11-14 19:52:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/518927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jackson_Rayne/pseuds/Jackson_Rayne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set post Serenity film. Kaylee POV. When Kaylee realises how it is she lets Simon go, and yet it's still a bumpy ride for him and the Captain.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Energy

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this years ago for the fantastic Karen who requested Mal/Simon :-) 
> 
> Disclaimer: Not mine - all hail Joss Whedon. No profit.

Something here ain’t working right.  
  
It woke Kaylee in the night, her heart pounding in panic, her mind racing,  making her feel all scratchy and scared, and the only time she’d felt anything close to this was when the catalyzer on the port compression coil blew and there wasn’t a damn thing she could do to fix it. They had been dead in the water with nowhere left to run.  
  
She’d roll over and look at Simon, lying next to her, deeply asleep and sometimes the sight of him splayed out in her bed and naked under the twisted-up sheet would be enough to soothe her and sometimes it wouldn’t and she’d have to wake him up and wrap her legs around him and they’d ride each other and he was hard and she was slick and they _fit_. Yeah, they fit real well, and eventually the sweet friction and warm pulses and the way Simon’s eyes went all dark and hungry and his hips snapped faster and faster into her soothed her scratchy panic. And she’d fall asleep, pushing to the back of her mind thoughts of how even when Simon looked right at her, she couldn’t read his eyes. Ignoring memories of patchy repair jobs, when the materials just weren’t right to fix the problem, and how sooner or later they always gave out.  
  
Kaylee knows about energy and workings you see, knows how to feel the thrum of an engine under her hands, listening for sounds that tell its working and sensing when something is about to burn out, well before it ever does. When you get right down to it, engine energy ain’t that much different from the energy you get in how people dance and talk and fight together. Some parts work together, some don’t. Sometimes parts are like Zoe and Wash were – they slot together like that was what they’d been made to do. And some people have energy like a defective engine coil that smouldered red and if you tried to touch it, it’d take your hand off, no mistake. Inara and the Captain used to be like that, but Inara ain’t here anymore.  
  
For a long time she thought that was why Mal was so on edge, why his jaw got tight and his eyes bitter and almost mean when he saw her with Simon, sitting together with their arms entwined. That he was lonely, that seeing what they have made him angry that he had let Inara slip away. But the Captain had seemed so mad at them even before Inara had left, again and for good…and now she’s wondering. Wondering if she’s got it the wrong way round, and this…thing, this jealous angry energy that just grates out of the Captain every time he sees her with Simon, is _why_ Inara left. Like the time when they came out of her bunk after snatching an afternoon roll, flushed and happy, and they’d smacked up against Mal with his eyes narrow and his face pale, he’d torn a strip off her for being behind with a repair job. Simon had snarled back at Mal not to yell at her and faster than blinkin’ the energy that always simmered between them, ever since the first moment they met, blazed up and it was so hot and raw and powerful it was like hitting a wall, she’d taken a step back, frightened for reasons she didn’t even know. Mal had stepped close to Simon – so close she could see Simon reflected in Mal’s eyes, and Simon’s face was as angry, and as hurting and as open as she’d ever seen it, but she still couldn’t read it, couldn’t understand the message on it, and Mal, his eyes were moving over Simon, understanding him, _hearing_ him, like they were speaking a language she had never heard and didn’t recognize. Simon hadn’t moved back, and even though she’d been pulling at Simon, trying to stop it from erupting into a fight for a moment neither man had noticed her, and then when they did, when they turned away from each other it was like they were forcing that energy back down inside them, smothering a fire with damp blankets, ignoring that it was still smouldering underneath, waiting for the breath of air to make it roar back to life.  
  
Mal had apologised to her later. Said he didn’t like shipboard romances, but he’d try to get used to this one for her. Then he’d hugged her tight and whispered into her hair, that he _would_ get used to this. And she’d hugged him back, and let herself believe him, while knowing somehow that whatever it was that was wrong, hadn’t been fixed.  
  
***  
  
They had all stumbled on for a little longer, until one night Kaylee had woken up with her heart pounding and her mind racing with that panic that she couldn’t name. She had turned to see Simon, and Simon wasn’t there.  
  
She stumbled out of bed to go and find him – probably he was with River. Although she was much better after finding Miranda sometimes the pictures in her head still gave her nightmares she couldn’t shake, and she needed her brother to calm her, but when Kaylee peeked inside River’s room the girl was fast asleep, then hearing raised voices she followed the sound to the kitchen.  
  
“ -do you want us to leave, is that what you want?” Simon’s voice lashed out as she came into earshot.  
  
Kaylee froze, just out of sight of the doorway. Serenity was more than her home, it was her world. She couldn’t choose between Serenity and Simon, it would kill her.  
  
“If you go Doc you go alone - do you think Kaylee would last five minutes away from Serenity?”  
  
“Are you going to stop her?”  
  
“Not if she wants to go, which she won’t.”  
  
“So you just want me and River to leave?”  
  
“No!”  
  
“Then what? What Mal? What the hell is it that you want?”  
  
Kaylee peered around the door and her heart thumped with fear, Simon and Mal where right up in each others faces, Simons fists were clenched, Mal’s jaw was tight and they were just _radiating_ …whatever the hell it was that they brought out in each other.  
  
“I want you gone! I want you here… I want…” Mal’s eyes flickered over Simon’s face, then he shuddered and turned away sharply as though he was pulling himself away. “I don’t know what I want.” He ran his fingers violently through his hair, swearing softly yet violently under his breath.  
  
Simon looked after him and swallowed, and made a tiny movement as though he wanted to go after him, then he turned away.  
  
“I need to go and…” Simon paused for a moment as though trying to think of an excuse and then just repeated softly; “I need to go.”  
  
“Yeah. Best you do that,” Mal replied without looking at him.  
  
And she saw then, and it was all so horribly simple.  
  
***  
  
And once she knew, it was so easy to see it all. See the energy like sparks dancing between them, diving into them and lighting them up inside out when they were around each other. She tried to trace it back to when it started, putting together a million tiny pieces along the way. The day the showers had broken and Simon had come bursting into the kitchen with his hair all wet, water clinging to his skin and the towel ridin’ low on his hips and Mal’s eyes had gotten stuck on him, and he’d had to blink and swallow a few times before he could get any words out. All the times they’d fought so fierce in an explosive burst of violence, as though they wanted to bruise, ruin each other, until Mal wouldn’t be driven crazy by the shape of Simon’s mouth or Simon by the heat in Mal’s eyes, cos energy like that needs to come out somehow, it surely does. All the times Mal had refused, for no reason that even he could explain, to leave Simon and River and all the trouble that followed them, behind. She remembers all the times they’ve looked – still look at each other as though there was no one else in the whole damn room, and she traced it right back to that moment on Persephone, with the sun beating down on them standing in an uncertain triangle and her own voice chirping. “Mal this is Simon,” Simon had been standing there, all clean and proper and groomed, with glasses hiding his eyes, turning to face Mal who was rough and dusty and battered around the edges – and something had happened right then, some charge had snapped between them the moment they’d looked at each other and it was from right then - right from that _second_ it had started and she and Simon had never stood a chance.  
  
***  
  
“Simon, we need to break up.” She heard herself say the words, but felt all numb and cold, like when she’d come round after being shot and Simon had pumped her so full of drugs it didn’t feel like her body anymore.  
  
Simon turned to face her – almost smiling, expecting her to be teasing him. “What?”  
  
“We need to break up.”  
  
Simon’s smile vanished as he took in the expression on her face. “Kaylee, what-? No – no. Why would you-? What are you talking about?”  
  
Kaylee swallowed. “You know why Simon. Mal…”  
  
“What about Mal?” Simon spoke too fast, then told the obvious lie. “I don’t want to talk about Mal.”  
  
“We don’t have to talk about him, but you know…” Simon stood up and began to pace Kaylee’s tiny bunk. “… he’s the reason why.”  
  
“If this is about his stupid ‘no shipboard romance’-”  
  
“Simon,” she almost managed a smile through the tears gathering in her eyes as she stood and took him gently by the shoulders forcing him to stop. “You know what it’s about.”  
  
Simon flushed then, a slash of red high up on his cheekbones realising there was no point in pretending he didn’t know what she was talking about, he shook his head, stumbling for words. She’s never managed to make him lost for words before. “Kaylee, no. Maybe he – but no. Its not…I swear nothing’s happened - I haven’t - we _wouldn’t_ -”  
  
“I know you wouldn’t, Simon. That’s why I’m lettin’ you. I’m the reason you’re not together. I’m the reason you ain’t happy.”  
  
“I _am_ happy with you,” Simon said stubbornly, shaking his head as though he could stop all this.  
  
She looks at him, the tears falling now, she can’t hold back. “No you ain’t. Not really. And I’m not. And Mal’s not.”  
  
“Maybe Mal thinks he wants… But Kaylee there’s nothing more – he doesn’t ca-care-” Simon gave up, but he was trembling under her hands and she knew it was nearly done.  
  
“He does. And he won’t do anything about it while you’re with me. Because he loves me.”  
  
“I love you too.”  
  
“I know you do. It just ain’t in the right way, not in a way that can make this last. We should fit in every way, not just in bed – but we don’t. We just…don’t work.”  
  
  
***  
  
For a little while nothing happened, but everything changed. She had a heavy heart, and Simon was both sad and jittery, and Mal was confused, and steadfastly not asking anything about it, but he would look at Simon a little longer with eyes a little darker and more intense than normal, his jaw tight and angry – as though he didn’t quite want to look, but couldn’t stop. And Simon looked back, a challenge in his eyes, edgy, waiting, and the energy between them was building, building…  
  
Late one night she’s walking on the upper decks. She’s been in the engine room, sleep ain’t been coming as easy as she’d like, and working deep in the heart of Serenity soothes her mind and aching heart, when she sees River, lying face down on the floor.  
  
“River!” She ran over to her. “Are you alright, sweetie?”  
  
“Shhh!” River looked up and Kaylee realised she’d been peering through a grate, getting a perfect view of the kitchen below. “Its going to get bumpy,” River whispered.  
  
Kaylee knelt down and, with a nod of encouragement from River, peered through the grate. Immediately she saw Mal and Simon below. Mal was rapidly taping up a pipe that had been buckling for a while. She had told him months ago wouldn’t hold for much longer unless they got some material to fix it, and it had picked now to prove her right. Mal’s movements were sharp and angry, and Simon was hovering behind, irritation and frustration radiating in every tense line of his body.  
  
“What’s going on?” Kaylee whispered.  
  
“Its coming out – been locked up and pushed away for too long, now its breaking down the door.”  
  
Kaylee felt her heart lurch painfully and River’s hand briefly stroked her hair.  
  
“It hurts,” River said. It wasn’t really a question but Kaylee answered anyway.  
  
“Yes. It hurts.”  
  
“It won’t always.”  
  
Kaylee nodded, unable to speak for a moment, and blinked back the sting in her eyes. River looked back down and Kaylee followed her gaze, falling into the moment that was happening below them.  
  
“…for Gods sake Mal, will you let me help you,” Simon said edgily.  
  
“Not needing any help, Doc,” Mal ground out from gritted teeth, then – inevitably – the pipe snapped at the joint, and flew back, hitting Mal forcefully on the wrist. Mal swore with pain, and before he had even finished Simon had run a tea towel under cold water and was back at his side.  
  
“Let me see-”  
  
“Best you start listening to me Doc, I said I don’t need any help!” But Simon, who always pushed even when it made no damn sense, reached out and forcefully gripped Mal’s arm, trying to turn his wrist to look at the injury. There was a moment where Kaylee bit her knuckles and River grinned with glee as Mal jerked his arm, trying to dislodge Simon, but Simon hung on his fingers tight on Mal, and Mal just couldn’t shake him.  
  
“Would you just-“  
  
“Let _go_ -“  
  
“Why do you keep pushing me away!” Simon shouted, distraught and hurting, and just all out mad.  
  
“Why do you keep coming back?” Mal roared.  
  
“Why do you think?!” Simon yelled.  
  
For a moment they stared angrily at each other, and then somehow Mal’s eyes sort of flickered to Simon’s mouth, and Simon inhaled shakily, and Mal’s hand snapped around Simon’s wrist and pulled and then, Kaylee couldn’t make out how it happened, but then they were kissing. Except it wasn’t the sort of kissing Kaylee had ever experienced. They were kissing like they were fighting. Hard, and furious and neither prepared to give in to the other, not for second. They banged into the table, bounced off it and thumped against the wall, only thinking of each other, not their surroundings – it was an odd, unelegant dance with no steps that Kaylee could make out. They didn’t seem to know where they were headed or how they wanted to get there. Mal’s hand was tight on Simon’s wrist, but the other was just as firm on Simon’s shoulder, holding him away even as he pulled him close, but Simon held his ground, fought for more, his hand tangled tightly in the front of Mal’s shirt, refusing to let him retreat, fighting him blow for blow with burning kisses and desperate trapped moans and the heat of his body.  
  
“It’s like they’re trying to kill each other,” River said considering them.  
  
Kaylee thought for once not of Serenity or the engine that beat like a heart inside her, but of the fireflies the ship was named after, and how their mating dance was violent and charged and wild. “It’s like that sometimes,” she said.  
  
Simon was pulling at Mal’s shirt and mouthing kisses down his throat. Mal's lips were clamped tightly shut, but his fingers were tearing at Simon’s shirt and there was the sound of cloth ripping and the oddly gentle patter of buttons bouncing to the floor, then in a sudden movement Mal had pushed Simon on his back on the table, and he was leaning over him, panting but not moving, the sudden stillness jarring after the movement that had come before. His eyes were flickering hungrily over Simon, jaw set and angry, holding back by sheer force of will, shaking with the strain of it and for a split second Kaylee couldn’t tell if Mal was going to walk away or just explode under the pressure – fall on Simon and let the energy blast through them both and hold on as best he could for the ride.  
  
“If you leave now,” Simon said, in a harsh, grating voice, shaking and exultant and desperate, never dropping his eyes from Mal, “I swear I will kill you.”  
  
There was a moment of pure stillness then; “Likewise, doc” Mal ground out. He grabbed Simon’s hips, pulling him sharply towards him, moved forward, on him, over him.  
  
“We should go,” Kaylee whispered to River, standing.  
  
“It’s just getting to the good part,” River objected.  
  
“River,” Kaylee said quietly, holding out her hand.  
  
“Okay,” River sighed, standing and taking her hand. They left, the sounds of the table rocking and the disjointed cries and gasps fading into the distance.  
  
  
***  
  
The next day even if Kaylee had wanted to pretend she didn’t know what had happened she couldn’t have, because Simon had kiss-bruises on his neck that matched the shape of Mal’s mouth exactly and Mal had finger marks on his wrists that belonged to Simon and Simon was looking at Mal all hopeful, and confused, and right on the edge of being really gorram hurt because Mal wouldn’t look Simon in the eye, and it really was impossible to keep secrets on Serenity.  
  
The others knew too of course but no one said much about it, not to her anyway. Apart from Jayne’s attempt to cheer her up by saying that he’d roll her if she was lonely, or wanted to give them a taste of it, or-.  
  
“Shut up Jayne,” Zoe had said calmly.  
  
“I’m just trying to make her feel better,” Jayne replied, injured.  
  
“Are you ok Kaylee?” Zoe asked.  
  
Kaylee thought of River, and how she had seemed so sure it wouldn’t always hurt, and nodded. “I will be.”  
  
“Don’t be angry with the Captain. A lifetime is a long time to be alone.”  
  
And Kaylee felt bad all of a sudden. At least Simon is still alive, still a part of her life, and as much as it hurts now, she has faith it won’t forever. She knows Zoe would give anything in the world to see Wash, just once more. Just once.  
  
Mal came to see her later that day of course, she knew he would. She was in the engine room, letting her hands do their work, listening to Serenity’s sweet, contented hum, taking her mind off everything outside this room.  
  
She noticed Mal standing behind her, and reluctantly left her work to go and sit with him on a small metal step.  
  
“Kaylee….” Mal began and stopped. “I guess you know…” he stopped again.  
  
“I know about you and Simon, Captain,” she jumped in, trying to make it easier for him.  
  
“I figured you would. Not much success in keeping secrets on this boat.”  
  
She half-smiled. “No, sir.”  
  
“Are you alright with this little Kaylee?”  
  
“Me and Simon are long over, Captain,”  
  
“That ain’t what I asked.”  
  
“I’m shiny, Captain.” She patted his hand. “Don’t you worry about me,”  
  
“Well. Best none of us gets too het up here. It’s probably not a long term thing.” Mal wasn’t looking at her, he was looking at his fingers – clenched tight in his lap, the knuckles bone white.  
  
“Don’t say that Captain,”  
  
“Alliance will keep an eye on him sure enough, but as long as he doesn’t do anything rash they’ll leave him and River be. He could go anywhere. Go back to doctoring at some Core hospital. I don’t know why he’s hung around this long.”  
  
“You don’t?” Kaylee almost laughed, but didn’t, she had a feeling it would turn to tears if she started.  
  
Mal stood, kissed her on the forehead and left the engine room. “I really don’t,” he muttered as he passed through the door.  
  
***  
  
And now it’s Mal and Simon that ain’t working right. Not in the way that she and Simon didn’t work right, him and the Captain, they grate on each other, causing sparks, not slippery, not flowing together the way they should. And she thinks it’s mostly because of the Captain. He won’t let that click happen – that sound as the two parts slot sweetly together into place, and she thinks he’s scared to. He’s been loose and unanchored to anything but Serenity for years. Having a whole other human body tied to him, caring about him, must be downright terrifying – and he keeps pushing Simon away, and Simon gets mad, and the Captain makes it a fight every gorram time, and hating it, hating it all the time he’s doing it, and Simon keeps holding on, because like her, he can see that Mal wants this so badly, even though he doesn’t know how to want it, but he’s trapped right now, and Simon doesn’t have a damn clue how to reach him.  
  
***  
  
They’d docked at a planet to do a job for a guy called Huve. Kaylee hadn’t met him, but from what she’d heard he made Niska seem downright cuddly. She’s worried, and she thinks Mal is too – he doesn’t want Zoe or Jayne going with him. Simon is absolutely terrified, and she can hear the yells echoing thoughout the whole ship.  
  
The crew, bar Jayne who is hovering near the door, trying to hear more, are huddled together in the far end of the hold, waiting for Mal to emerge.  
  
“Simon sounds mad,” Zoe said inexpressively following an especially loud yell.  
  
“He’s frightened,” River said with a faraway expression that sent chills down Kaylee’s spine. “He should be.”  
  
Kaylee got a hard hit of cold fear in her gut. “Is something bad going to happen?”  
  
River was still, away, somewhere…other. “Something bad,” she repeated softly.  
  
“We should all go,” Zoe said forcefully.  
  
River shook her head. “That’s something worse. He moves faster alone.”  
  
“But…” Kaylee began.  
  
“Alone,” River repeated softly. “He’s used to being alone, that’s why Simon frightens him.” She arched her head towards the sound of the shouting, and as if on a string everyone else did the same. The shouts were getting closer now, the words becoming distinguishable.  
  
“Then why go?” Simon was pleading. “River’s already told you its dangerous-”  
  
“She said I’d be better going alone, now you’ve been telling me a powerful long time not ignore your sis Doc, you’re not going to start whinging now I’m listening to her are you?”  
  
“We can leave – now – we can try somewhere else-”  
  
“Try _where_?” Mal snarled. “Do you have any idea how bad things are? How little we’ve got here? Hardly any food, no fuel to speak off, we need this!”  
  
“We need you! Don’t be a suicidal fool, don’t go-”  
  
“Don’t you ever think you get to tell me what to do!”  
  
“I won’t! I won’t let you go!” There was the sound of a muffled struggle, of a fist hitting its mark, and a body crashing to the floor.  
  
“This ain’t your decision Doc,” Mal said harshly. His voice was steady, but Kaylee, who could hear an engine change its pitch the second it happened, heard the cracks underneath. “Best you learn now. This is me. And this is what I do.”  
  
Simon’s voice came again, but this time it was sad, defeated. “Yes. This is you. And this is me not wanting to be involved with someone who won’t even think of what it will do to me when he goes on a suicide mission.”  
  
“You know that sounds like the best idea I’ve heard in a long time. Consider yourself un-involved.”  
  
There was a moment of pure terrible silence, then the door hissed open, and Mal stalked in, his eyes burning in his face, Simon just visible, motionless on the floor behind him. Mal didn’t look back, so neither saw the other break inside as he walked away.  
  
***  
  
The job went wrong. Of course it did. Mal didn’t make the pick-up point. They waited for two days and he didn’t come and Simon was falling apart. He couldn’t catch his breath, didn’t eat, and although Kaylee never heard a peep from him at night, from his white face and dark purple shadows under his eyes he wasn’t sleeping either. He even snarled at Jayne, who he usually tried to ignore as much as possible. Jayne looked angry for a moment – then looked at Simon again and let it go.  
  
Kaylee went looking for him, and found him in the Infirmary where Simon was slumped on the bed with his surgical tools around him, giving them a completely unnecessary cleaning. Drawing comfort from this room as she did from Serenity’s engine. She moved a couple of instruments and sat beside him on the bed, wordlessly taking his hand in hers. Simon clung onto it tightly.  
  
“I’m sure he’ll be alright Simon, the Captain has gotten out of worse situations then this.”  
  
Simon swallowed and nodded, but she knew in her heart he couldn’t believe it, he was too smart for that. For a while she didn’t think he was going to say anything, then he whispered; “We were so awful to each other before he went.”  
  
“You didn’t want him to get hurt, he knew that.”  
  
“No he didn’t. He never understands, sometimes he hates me.”  
  
“No! That ain’t so, Simon. He just ain’t used to showing what he feels. Or even feeling what he feels. You’ve got to give him more time.”  
  
She kissed him then, on the forehead, like the mother he had left behind long ago.  
  
“What if we don’t have any more time? What if…” He stopped, unable to finish that thought. “I’m so scared, Kaylee.”  
  
She nodded. “Me too.”  
  
The comm system snapped into life, making them both jump and River’s voice sounded in the room. “Time to go,” she said dreamily. “Mal’s ready.”  
  
Kaylee and Simon stood as one, then staggered, holding onto each other for balance as the ship lifted off. They hurried to the bridge, arriving the same time as Jayne and Zoe.  
  
“What’s goin’ on?”  
  
“Where are we going?”  
  
“Following Mal’s signal,” River replied, not looking at any of them, concentrating on her piloting.  
  
“What signal?” Jayne asked, looking around at the consoles, “I don’t see no signal.”  
  
“He’s sending it with his *brain*” River scoffed.  
  
Jayne looked at her for a moment. “You know girl sometimes having you fly this ship is just downright unsettling.”  
  
But for the first time in two days there was hope in the air, Simon wasn’t saying a word but his knuckles were white where he was gripping the back of River’s chair and his eyes alive with a desperate, wild hope, leaning way over scouring the horizon, trying to see him that split second sooner than he would otherwise, because every moment of this desperate torture was killing him.  
  
But when they landed there was no sign of him, it was deep winter here, the planet was covered in snow and ice, and Kaylee stared at the whiteness blankly. “He ain’t here, River! He ain’t here!”  
  
“Look,” River pointed calmly.  
  
Kaylee stared and stared, and Simon beside her stared too and Simon made a tiny, broken off sound a split second before she saw, a shape appeared through the blizzard, it was a figure, a man, it was him.  
  
“Open the doors!” Zoe commanded, and River flipped the switch, Kaylee and the others turned to go and meet him, but when Kaylee paused for Simon he was still leaning on River’s chair, still looking, not able to take his eyes away. Maybe not daring to, for fear if he did Mal would vanish forever.  
  
“Simon,” she called softly. “Come on. Come to him.”  
  
Simon tore his eyes from the window and looked at her. She gave him a tiny encouraging nod, and he swallowed, nodded, took her outstretched hand.  
  
When they got to the hold she barely noticed Simon’s hand slip from hers as she ran forward to meet the Captain as he staggered aboard, while Simon lingered behind the others. The Captain looked dreadful, eyes red and tired, he was limping badly and there was an ugly wound on his shoulder with dried blood all around it. The worse thing though was how exhausted he looked, tired through to his bones. For a moment she felt almost frightened of him, then his gaze flickered as he looked around the ship and she realised he was almost overcome with emotion – he most probably had thought he’d never see home again. She ran at him and he gave her as tight a hug as he could manage with one arm badly hurt before turning away and looking at Zoe.  
  
“Good to have you back Sir,” Zoe said gently.  
  
“I can’t tell you how good it is to be back. How did you know where-?”  
  
“River, Sir.”  
  
“I gotta give that girl a raise. How’s my ship?”  
  
“She’s fine Sir, ready to go?”  
  
“Oh, hell yes. Tell River too-”  
  
The roaring of the engines cut him off.  
  
“Never mind. Zoe go send a signal to Huve – tell him we got his stuff. Jayne you stow these boxes, Kaylee you go see if you can help River coax my boat to move any faster.”  
  
Kaylee nodded and followed the others as they dispersed, but lingered behind the door, just outside their range of sight, because she was there at the start of this, and she wanted to be there at – at whatever this was going to be.  
  
Now the others had melted away Simon stepped forward, and for a long moment they just looked at each other.  
  
“I thought you were dead,” Simon said at last, his voice trembling.  
  
“I won’t deny, I thought that a few times myself,” Mal agreed, gazing at Simon as though he could not, could not look away.  
  
“I thought-” Simon’s voice wavered badly and he stopped. For a moment he looked like he might just fall down in a heap, then his jaw tightened and he dragged in a shaky breath and he stayed standing. “You sh-should let me check you over” Simon said at last, and she’d seen him do this before – pulling on being a doctor like he was slipping on a glove – but she’d never seen it look so hard for him before. “You look like Hell.”  
  
“You look like gorram paradise,” Mal said quietly.  
  
Simon gave a tiny, choked laugh. Swallowed. Couldn’t form the words he wanted to. Maybe that was no bad thing. Maybe he needed to give Mal room to talk. He gestured to Mal’s bad arm.  
  
“Let me look at that – let me help you.”  
  
Mal let Simon take his bruised hand. “I don’t know why you keep trying-”  
  
“You know why,” Simon said, threading his fingers with Mal’s, not meeting his eyes.  
  
“Doc- Simon, about what I said-”  
  
“It doesn’t matter-”  
  
“That’s a kindness, but it’s untrue. Anything that makes you look like that, it matters. Thing is the only thing that kept me hanging on while I was out there was I just kept thinking, ‘I’ve got to get through this, I’ve got to get home, so I can see Simon, just once more. To say I’m sorry.”  
  
Simon nodded, looked at Mal and tried to smile. “Well, you didn’t have to come back just for that,”  
  
“To be honest there’s some other stuff I’ve been wanting to say.”  
  
“Mal-”  
  
“I didn’t mean it, not one word, but I ain’t easy, Simon,” Mal said painfully. “I know that – I don’t know how to do easy. And if you want to walk away from this I understand, but you best do it now, befo-”  
  
Simon’s kiss stopped him in the middle of a word. Stopped him in the middle of a breath. Stopped a whole life in its tracks. And Mal let it. Something hard and unyielding between them melted away in that moment – she could see it as plain as she could see Mal sink into Simon’s arms.  
  
It was a kiss like she’d never seen them have before, slow and warm and so…so gorram sweet. If it was her she would die of sweetness like that. Mal and Simon looked like they were ready to themselves.  
  
They rested their foreheads on each others, looking into the others eyes. Two parts slotting together, hearing the click, real sweet and shiny.  
  
And Kaylee smiled slightly, eyes stinging, but smiling. Proudly, jealously, happily and tearfully, before turning away to give them some deserved privacy as Mal buried his face in the crook where Simon’s neck met his shoulder and whispered words she couldn’t quite hear, but knew were promises, sweet and true.  
  
End


End file.
